Its widely belived that you can make sooo much money in Japan and certainly more there than you can make in Korea. Yes this was certainly true once but is it true now? Well if you have a Uni job (perhaps 45-500000yen/mth before privates, although harder to get these days with decreasing student numbers and you need a MA minimum) or if you are one of the lucky few who have been promoted to a teacher trainer or managerial position (they usually get around 350000 y/mth) then well done, Japan is the ideal destination. At the very top end of the market Japan still offers the best deal. You need read no further here.
On the other hand if you're like most of us regular teachers you probably just have a degree of some kind, perhaps a CELTA/TESOL cert, and maybe a couple of years experience. Well they still pay much much more in Japan don't they? Well do they? The standard salary before overtime etc for regular teachers in Japan is now only about around 260000Yen/mth or about 2.6 mill won. Basically they're just overrun with teachers over there these days (see Lens letters on the link below). Still thats significantly more than the standard in Korea of about 1.7 mill (except for those poor b******s at ELS!). But then you get free accommodation in Korea. So take out around 60000Yen/mth for housing on average in Japan. This leaves 2.0Won/mth which is still more than in Korea. OK but you have to work much harder in Japan for the standard salary with more prep (12h/wk at NOVA) and lots of travel to those company classes etc that they farm you out to (esp at the mom and pop operations). So to the Korean salary we have to add some overtime, say 5 hours (on the conservative side) extra a week at 15000/h. This brings the Korean salary package to 2.0 mill won the same as the standard Japanese package of 2.0 mill won! So wheres the lucrative Japanese salaries people used to talk about?!
Well what about the extra money you can make moonlighting? Japan pays about 2500 to 4000 Yen (although it can be up to 10-12000 for hard to get company classes) or 25000 to 40000 Won which is basically the same as Korea! No joy there.
So does this mean then that you can make as much in Korea as you can say in Japan? No because as everybody knows Japan is much more expensive than Korea. On average it might be around three times as expensive to live in Japan. Foods not that much more, a Mac combo is 5000 compared to around 3700 here. But the killer is on essentials like utilities and transport (buses 4-5 times higher, taxis about 10,000 Won for 7 minutes!). Movies are twice as high, videos are around 4000 won compared to 500-1000 in Korea. The internet cafes cost a whopping 10,000 won/h! Forget Daves Cafe unless you want to file for bankruptcy.
So what does this all mean? Well you hear people saying they can save money in Japan without too much trouble and thats true. You just have to be more financially careful and do a bit of extra overtime. But the fact is that to save the same amount of money in Japan as you would in Korea you would have to lower your standard of living to roughly a THIRD of how you could live in Korea just to save the SAME amount of money. Now Japan is a great experience. Apart from the money theres not a single thing I could think of to say favorably about Korea in comparison to Japan. Its much more beautiful (they actually have an aesthetic sense in their building design etc), theres so much more to see and do, the people are polite and don't make a national sport out of ripping foreigners off. But according to surveys its the most expensive country in the world to live in. So the question is are you able and willing to live frugally and make some hard sacrifices?
To expand on this If you want to save money in Japan you really have to curtail your spending and alter your lifestyle a bit. Eg its not a place for drinkers/partyers. Booze and nightclubs etc are just to expensive to support relative to your standard salary. On the other hand Korea is very cheap (although you could pick up some beers just as cheap back home) in that respect relative to Japan and if you want to go out every night you can. For Japan if you want to use the net you can invest in your own computer so you don't end up paying those outrageous internet cafe charges. So if you don't go out too much and you're careful in your spending you can save US$1000 on your basic salary same as Korea. But you won't be living anything like your fellow teachers in Korea or Taiwan.
On the other hand you need to spend more money in Korea just to stay sane(!). Some people spend so much on holidays etc trying to stay in equilibrium in Korea that they don't end up saving hardly anything at all. Others grit it out for a year or so and save a lot of money but then can't take it anymore.
How does Taiwan compare money wise then? Theres a perception that the money is better in Taiwan and the well paid jobs (like NTD 650/h) do pay better than Korea. However they have more salary variation in Taiwan than Korea and on average their pay works out to be less once tax and accomodation is taken into account. Average salaries in Taiwan are only about NTD$55000 for around 25-30 hours (including prep time but can go up to 40 hours total). You pay 20% witholding tax on that and if you either a) stay in Taiwan for less than six months in the year for whatever reason or b) you start after June, you forfeit all that to the Taiwan government. Also you often have to do visa runs because lots of schools are illegal and because even if you can get a work visa they can take two months to process. This costs about TW$10000 per run to Hong Kong each month which works out at about 20%. So say you lose 20% on average although it can go down to an actual tax rate of 8-9% once you've settled in. That leaves about 45000. Then take out 10000 for an apartment (around 7000 outside Taipei for a nice place) and that leaves $35000. Times that by 36 to convert to won and you only get 1.26 million won which is really quite pathetic. Add to that Taiwan being a bit more expensive (some things like taxis) and Korea becomes a better place to make/save money on average. Note that we are very much talking about averages here and its certainly possible to get into a very good position in Taiwan.
Bottom line Korea is the best place to save money and I've met quite a few people who prefer Korea but most people who have worked in both countries vote with their feet for Japan or Taiwan.
To give a concrete illustration of what its like saving money in Japan the following is a typical situation that was posted on Daves Cafe:
"...my situation presently. I make 250,000 yen
per month. Rent is 60,000, half of which is paid by my employer so after rent I am at 220,000. Utilites run about 15,000. Then with taxes I am usually left with roughly 200,000. Now I scrimp and save. I ride a bicycle everywhere. I never take busses or taxi. I go out maybe two or three times a month for a good meal. And I NEVER travel anywhere. Doing this I can save about 100,000-120,000 per month. This was fantastic when the exchange rate was 107. It isn't so great now but still pretty good. The problem is I hate my job and my boss. My work is one on one and entails reading out loud or leading them through written exercises They could easily do themselves. All of my teaching ideas are ignored and I spend hours reading out loud. I can read a 1000 word passage and not have the foggiest idea what it's about. Since the work is one on one, I am at the mercy of the whims and schedules of my students. I work at a small school so it may be different at other places, although you should read the horror stories of some of the people who work at the big Eikaiwas. So if you want more money, probably it would be best to stay out of the huge cities. Try a smaller town if possible. Find a place where you can ride a bike to work (round trip bus fare to my school is 500 yen). And if you can, spend every evening in your apartment reading or watching TV. Once you start going out to restaurants, bars, movies, and traveling a lot, your money will quickly disappear. How much you can save is up to you..."
At present exchange rates hes only saving about US$1000/mth. As pointed out above if you're on the JET scheme, teaching high schools/university or doing lots of privates (competitive and takes time to build up) you can earn and save a lot more. This is living pretty austerely. Spending the whole year watching TV or reading and not going out even to catch a movie or get a bite to eat is pretty grim. And not even being able to catch the bus! Its been observed that you have to live like a monk in Japan to save money on the basic salary and its not far wrong. Its like living a third world lifestyle in a first world country. Compare this to Korea or even Taiwan where you can actually live a reasonably normal life and still save although I should mention if you're a spender its not hard to spend all your salary. Eg you can go out at least once a week, get as many videos as you want, use public transport(!), eat pretty much whatever you want etc in Korea and Taiwan and still save US$1000 a month.
Bottom line, unless you can get into a good position, Japan is great to go for the cultural experience (from a peasant-tourist perpective) but not so good for the money.
To read more about the change in the Japanese situation, with the market becoming more competitive and salaries coming down, you can check out Len Peters excellent two letters (also has some great comparisons between teaching in Japan and teaching in Korea) on Jon's site: (1) and the update (2).
